


almost, completely

by lordbirthdayxv



Series: Undernourished Egos [5]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29317707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordbirthdayxv/pseuds/lordbirthdayxv
Summary: They meet again when winter rears its frosted head.
Relationships: Im Changkyun | I.M/Yoo Kihyun
Series: Undernourished Egos [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116836
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23





	almost, completely

**Author's Note:**

> picks up a year or so after [down to gehenna](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28838463) but can be read as a standalone piece.

They meet again when winter rears its frosted head, teeth bared to bite. When he opens the door, Kihyun’s frozen fingers are still pushed against the button, the shrill sound echoing harshly in the cold quiet of Changkyun’s house. They stand looking at each other for long moments.

“You,” Changkyun breathes at last. 

Snow is melting in Kihyun’s dark hair, water collecting in the rims of his eyes. “Help me,” he whispers and Changkyun catches him before he hits the floor. His heart thuds in his chest, the red of it tearing against the scabs and beating for Kihyun once again. _It was only a matter of time,_ Changkyun thinks, as he gathers Kihyun to his chest, feels every bone through his inadequate clothing. For a moment he holds him close, breathing in his scent. Kihyun smells like snow, like nothing and something all at once and Changkyun’s body grows ever colder in his proximity.

He carries Kihyun inside and wraps him in every blanket he can find, holds him in his lap in front of the fire. Kihyun’s fingernails are blue and Changkyun takes his freezing hands, presses them to his lips, blows on them as gently as he can. For someone with the strength to bruise hearts and skin, Kihyun is weaker than a dying pulse in his arms and the thought is comforting as it is disheartening. _Wake, siren,_ Changkyun wants to say, _break from my embrace._ But Kihyun remains motionless. Changkyun pulls him closer, nestles his face in the crook of his neck, and drifts off to a light sleep.

He wakes up to the last embers clinging to charred wood and the cold of the floor digging into his legs. He looks down and Kihyun is blinking up at him, sleep still clinging to the corners of his eyes. There is color splotched in his cheeks again and Changkyun’s heart catches in his throat at the sight.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey,” Kihyun’s voice is scratchy and he clears his throat but doesn’t say anything else. Changkyun watches him carefully, old fear of a lucid Kihyun blanketing his nerves. Will he scream? Will he leave? Most importantly, will he stay? Nothing moves in the stillness of the house, darkness spreading ink-like around them.

And then finally, Kihyun speaks.

“I ran away.”

“What?”

“I ran away,” Kihyun repeats, “from him, from home.”

Home. It feels like plunging head first into icy water. Changkyun pushes bile back down his throat and tries to look concerned. Kihyun looks at him and laughs, short and derisive.

“Don’t look like you didn’t want this.”

“Not like this.”

“Then how?” Kihyun sits up a little and there is a peculiar dark fire in his eyes. He wrests a hand free of the cocoon of blankets, trails it up his chest to his own neck. Back down, down, down, and Changkyun watches with trepidation as it hooks into the neck of Kihyun’s sweater and pushes it off one shoulder. Even in the dull dregs of late afternoon light, Changkyun can see goosebumps peppering his exposed skin.

“Kihyun-”

“Don’t you want this?” Kihyun asks, his voice a slick whisper of old, familiar need, Changkyun knows it well. Hates the way it sounds. “I’m here, with you. Don’t you want this, Changyunnie?”

And there is it, condescension that Kihyun masks with the scent of his own body, luring Changkyun to feed on his love. Anger swirls in Changkyun’s throat, makes it hollow and tight. He disentangles himself from Kihyun and stands up.

“I need to finish up some work. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like,” he ignores Kihyun’s baffled stare and rekindles the fire, “let me know if you need anything else.”

Back in his room, he sits on the bed and tries not to let the hurt overcome him. A door separates him from Kihyun, from what is being offered to him. And yet.

He busies himself with work, mind miles away. The only light in his room comes from his laptop. Outside, snow falls softly, and time begins to stretch. Wider and wider it grows, inflating until it stops completely and Changkyun is pulled back to the man, stranger, lover, friend, outside his door. Was he okay? Was he warm? Had he eaten anything?

Had he left?

Changkyun gets out of bed, swallowing apprehension, and opens his door. Faint music trickles in from somewhere deep within the house. Heart pounding, he treads softly on the hardwood floor, following the sound to the living room and stops in the doorway.

Kihyun is standing by the record player, bathed in the firelight, swaying gently on his feet. His eyes are closed and he is singing along softly.

“But now my foolish boat is leaning, broken lovelorn on your rocks.”

His eyes open slowly and he regards Changkyun through a blurred wet glaze. His lip quivers.

“I'm as troubled at the tide.”

Changkyun takes a step forward. Then another.

“Swim to me,” Kihyun’s whisper is layered like folded tissue under the crooning from the record player. He raises his arms and tilts his head to a side, pleading. “Let me enfold you.”

Changkyun sucks in a sharp breath and moves forward into his arms. Kihyun lets out a pained moan and crumpled against him, face pressed against the side of Changkyun’s neck. There they stand, hunger stoked like fire in a hearth, growing, growing, until Kihyun’s hands ascend the plane of Changkyun’s back, nails digging into his flesh.

“I see the animal in you,” Changkyun chokes out, more to reassure himself than anything else, “I feel my own there.”

Kihyun presses his lips to the skin behind Changkyun’s ear and whispers, accuses, “You wolve for me.”

“I do,” Changkyun replies and claims a patch of skin as his own, sucking a bruise under Kihyun’s jaw, “I always have.”

Kihyun pulls him away and back in, kisses Changkyun with both hands in his hair. Changkyun tastes the snow on his tongue, chases it with the sharp tang of blood from Kihyun’s chapped lips. It feels like dread that comes with winter, of the sun setting too early and confusion tangled with one’s insides. Like the bottom giving out from beneath one’s feet. It is disorienting and yet alive, winter air shaped like great swans that they breathe down each other’s throats.

Kihyun puts a hand on Changkyun’s chest, “I’m a monster,” he says, as if the blood rushing in his wrist is anything less than the bloodflood ebbing and flowing in Changkyun’s heart. 

Changkyun shakes his head and takes his hand, pulls him directly into the halo of firelight. Looks upon the face that he memorized years ago. If Kihyun were to go now, disappear like powder on the winter wind, Changkyun is certain he can recite the contours of his face from memory, pull it out like a photograph to look at. 

“I have never seen the likes of you before,” he says with a reverence that shocks even himself. Kihyun blinks his beautiful eyes glowing their pomegranate light, inviting Changkyun to take bites out of them, bequeath himself to the rot that has nested within him. Changkyun weighs his freedom against this servitude and realizes, ashamed, that he would gladly be tugged down to the underworld. Kihyun’s eyes find his as his hands lace with Changkyun’s.

“Come kiss me then,” he says, “kiss me. It might take you somewhere.”

So Changkyun does. Cups Kihyun’s face between his hands and kisses his red, spit-slick lips. Slips out of the light and into the darkness that pools anywhere Kihyun steps. It feels like a rite of passage, like his soul has liquefied and seeped into Kihyun’s skin, decimated in its depths. Kihyun kisses him like he is drinking from him. _Soon there will be nothing left of me,_ Changkyun thinks, sighing contentedly into Kihyun’s mouth. _Soon, I too will taste like the nothing of snow._

Soon, it will be light.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/ajghar1)


End file.
